A former police officer suspected of being the elusive “Golden State Killer” is expected to plead guilty Monday to a series of linked assaults and murders that terrorized California’s suburbs in the 1970s and 1980s.
The settlement will save Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., 74, the death penalty for 13 murders and 13 kidnapping-related charges spanning six counties. In partial exchange, the survivors of the assaults expect him to admit up to 62 rapes for which he could not be criminally charged because too much time has passed.
“I’ve been using pins and needles because I just don’t like our lives being tied to him again,” said Jennifer Carole, daughter of Lyman Smith, an attorney who was killed in 1980 at age 43 in Ventura County. . His wife, Charlene Smith, 33, was raped and also killed.
Accused of being the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo is expected to plead guilty this week.
(AP, file)
Investigators initially linked certain crimes to a masked, armed rapist who broke into the suburban houses of the sleeping couples at night, tied the man up, and stacked dishes on his back. They said that he would threaten to kill both victims if he heard the plates fall while he raped the woman.
A guilty plea and life sentence would avoid a trial or even a preliminary hearing scheduled for a week. Relatives of the dead are expected to confront him at his sentencing in August, where it may take several days to tell DeAngelo and Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman what they have suffered.
It took years for investigators to connect a series of assaults in central and northern California with subsequent murders in southern California; they finally settled on the so-called Golden State Killer, whose crimes spanned 11 counties from 1974 to mid-1986.
The pioneering use of new DNA techniques led investigators to DeAngelo, whom the Auburn Police Department, northeast of Sacramento, had fired in 1979 after he was caught stealing dog repellent and a hammer. He had previously worked as a police officer in the city of Exeter in the Central Valley from 1973 to 1976.
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Investigators painstakingly built a family tree by linking DNA from the crime scene decades ago to a distant relative through an online DNA database. They were eventually limited to DeAngelo with a process that detectives have since used in other cases across the country.
His defense attorneys have since lobbied for a settlement that would save him the death penalty. Prosecutors who had applied for the death penalty cited the enormously complicated case and the advanced age of many of the victims and witnesses in agreeing to consider the plea agreement.
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“Death does not solve anything. But, having to go through a trial or preliminary hearing, that would have helped, “said Carole, adding that neither her murdered father nor she believed in capital punishment.
But he said it “absolutely” made sense for prosecutors to accept a life sentence without parole, both to prevent older victims and witnesses more vulnerable to the coronavirus from appearing in court, and to save taxpayers the cost. projected $ 20 million from a trial
Associated Press contributed to this report..
